From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday in Monrovia, Liberia, urged West African leaders to do everything in their power to ensure that elections are held in their countries in an atmosphere of trust, freedom, and transparency, as this is the only way the sub-region can be protected from the scourge of unconstitutional takeovers that has recently emerged in three countries.
According to a statement by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, he made the call in a goodwill message to the Government and people of Liberia, where he joined other world leaders on the occasion of the 175th Independence Anniversary of the West African nation.
According to Buhari, democracy and good governance must take root on the African continent in order to sustain peace, stability, and development, and leaders must redouble their efforts to ensure democracy’s irreversibility.
“I would like to use the opportunity of this event to address an important issue affecting three countries in the ECOWAS region; Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
“All the three nations have National Elections in 2023. In Nigeria, we are working towards a free, fair, transparent, credible and acceptable outcome of elections and their results, it is important and necessary for all our countries to key into these resolves as they are indispensable to peace and stability in our countries and sub-region.
“The deepening of democracy and good governance are essential antidotes to check-mate unconstitutional change of governments as we sadly witnessed within the last three years in three countries within our sub-region. We must strengthen our efforts to guarantee the irreversibility of democracy in our sub-region and Africa,” he said.
President Buhari ceased the occasion to recall Nigeria’s leadership roles in bringing the country back from fratricidal insurgency in the 1990s, adding that his presence at the celebrations demonstrates his strong belief in strengthening existing bilateral ties:
“Nigeria’s contributions to the survival and safety of Liberia are well known. The dark period of your country’s civil war from 1989 to 1997, was a period that Nigeria invested hugely for peace in Liberia and indeed stability in the rest of the ECOWAS sub-region. May those dark days never re-surface in our countries and sub-region.”
He praised his Liberian counterpart, Dr. George Weah, for his love for the country and pursuit of peace, unity, and progress, as evidenced by people-oriented projects carried out with the sole purpose of propelling the country to greater heights with the limited resources at his disposal. While urging the Liberian leader to do more, he assured him of Nigeria’s unwavering support.
“Your Excellency’s policy of development launched in 2018 as well as the recently launched youth empowerment program, targeted at comprehensively addressing the problems of youth restiveness in Liberia and equally aimed at rescuing the disadvantaged youths (ZOGOS in local parlance) from drug addictions and other forms of social vices and transforming them into useful members of the Liberian society, are clearly very appropriate policies to lift up the most vulnerable.
“Permit me to assure you and all Liberians that Nigeria, as a good partner and a dependable ally, would continue to support you in these efforts, within the limit of our resources. This brings to the fore, the need for strengthening and broadening the levels of collaboration and cooperation between our two countries, both bilaterally and multilaterally, within the ECOWAS, AU and the UN, in order to adequately tackle the common national, sub-regional and global challenges”, Buhari said.
The President of Liberia, thanked President Buhari and other West African leaders for their attendance and to our President in particular, “thank you Mr. President and the good people of Nigeria. Without your support we would not have had peace.”
President Buhari was accompanied on the trip by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama and Director-General, National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Amb. Ahmed Rufai Abubakar.